books.google.com - Conversing in a mausoleum with the dead, an eccentric recluse is tugged back into the world by a pair of ghostly lovers bearing an extraordinary gift-the final chance for his own happiness. When challenged by a faithless wife and aided by a talking raven, the lives of the living and the dead may be renewed...https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Fine_and_Private_Place.html?id=mYOdgeeJCBcC&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareA Fine and Private Place

A Fine and Private Place

Conversing in a mausoleum with the dead, an eccentric recluse is tugged back into the world by a pair of ghostly lovers bearing an extraordinary gift-the final chance for his own happiness. When challenged by a faithless wife and aided by a talking raven, the lives of the living and the dead may be renewed by courage and passion, but only if not belatedly. Told with an elegiac wisdom, this&delightful tale of magic and otherworldly love&is a timeless work of fantasy imbued with hope and wonder. After multiple printings since 1960, this newest edition will contain the author's recent revisions and will stand as the definitive version of an ageless classic.

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LibraryThing Review

User Review - DinadansFriend - LibraryThing

I'm not a fan of Emily Dickenson, but it's a good title. Mr. Beagle has sent us an excellent look at the way the dead stay with us, even when inconvenient. I've always known that a raven in the ... Read full review

LibraryThing Review

User Review - dbsovereign - LibraryThing

Beagle is a genius! Cemetaries, death - is this a fantasy?! A new magical realism when it was even extant yet!!Read full review

About the author (1987)

Peter S. Beagle was born in Manhattan in April of 1939. During his senior year of high school, Beagle entered a poem and a short story in the 1955 Scholastic Writing Awards Contest, not knowing that the Grand Prize was a college education. He won that prize and went on to spend four years at the University of Pittsburgh after graduating from high school in 1955. In his sophomore year at the University of Pittsburgh, Beagle entered another contest, winning first place again in Seventeen Magazine's Short Story Contest. At the age of 19, he published "A Fine and Private Place." Beagle graduated college with a degree in Creative Writing and a Spanish minor and then spent a year overseas. When he returned, his new-found agent had enrolled him in a writing workshop at Stanford. After his first few published stories, Beagle supported himself and his family as a freelancer for many years. In the 70's he began to write screenplays, as well as take up the hobby of singing folk songs at a local club. Beagle has published music as well as books, both his passions, and both lucrative. Beagle gives lectures and readings at universities, and also hosts writing workshops at schools such as the University of Washington and Clarion West. His works have been translated into 15 languages. Beagle has also written a script for Star Trek: The Next Generation and the screenplay for the animated feature version of The Lord of the Rings. In 1987, Beagle's "The Last Unicorn" was proclaimed the Number 5 All Time Fantasy Novel. That same year, "The Innkeeper's Song" won the Mythopoetic Fantasy Award. In 1997, "The Unicorn Sonata" won the Locus Poll Award for Best Novella, and in 1998, "Giant Bones" won the same award as well as being nominated for the 1998 World Fantasy Award.